Monitor engineer Craig Brittain tells Mix that each of the brass players on the crooner’s tour is using Aviom Pro16 personal monitors to handle their individual mixes.

Michael Buble (seated) performing live

How did the Pro16s come into play for this tour?
The Aviom personal monitoring system came into play at the start of the last round of album touring. I was looking for a product that would help ease the workload of mixing monitors for a big band, but would be relatively unobtrusive, reliable and easy to use and set up. Our production manager at the time, as well as a few industry peers, spoke very highly of the Aviom products, and upon testing them out it became a no brainer.

Are you providing any mix to the brass players or is that completely handled by the Aviom systems?
I am not using or sending any other mixes to our brass section apart from the stems and direct outs that fill out the 16 channels of the Avioms. I have a few spare mixes/beltpacks in the event of a failure or malfunction of some sort. The only time in the past three years I have needed to use a spare mix for our brass section was when one of the guys squashed a Cat-5 cable with his chair.

What console are you working on? Any FX?
I am currently using a DiGiCo SD7, which works great with the Aviom system through the use of D-16c A-NET card. I do use one channel of the allotted 16 to send a little bit of reverb along with some of our brass ambient microphones.

Where can we find you when you’re not on the road?
I’m dividing my time between my home in Vancouver and Calgary, where my mom and sister live. Most nights, I’m taking in a live show somewhere, and catching up with friends whom I have met during my time on the road.